‘Turnitin’ software for all varsities to check plagiarism in research

8.

GS II: POLITY – RTI

‘Set deadline to fill CIC, SICs posts’

9.

GS III: DISASTER MANAGEMENT

India to give flash-flood warning to Asian nations

10.

GS II: INTERNATIONAL – ASIA

North Korea returns remains of U.S. war dead

11.

GS II: BILATERAL -INDIA-CHINA

‘Indian firms flouting norms to import Chinese goods ‘

GS II: POLITY – BILL/ACT

Protect critical personal data of citizens: draft Bill

The draft personal data protection Bill, 2018, submitted by the Justice B.N. Srikrishna-headed expert panel, has proposed that critical personal data of Indian citizens be processed in centres located within the country.

The draft law, which comes after a year-long consultation process, however, has left it to the government to notify categories of personal data that will be considered critical.

Other personal data may be transferred outside the territory of India with some riders.

However, at least one copy of the data will need to be stored in India.

The draft Bill, which India hopes will become a model framework for personal data protection for the world, will apply to processing of personal data within India, including the State.

For data processors not present in India, the Act will apply to those carrying on business in India or other activities, such as profiling, which could cause privacy harms to data principals in India.

The draft also provides for penalties for the data processor as well as compensation to the data principal to be imposed for violations of the data protection law.

It has suggested a penalty of Rs. 15 crore, or 4% of the total worldwide turnover of any data collection/processing entity, for violating provisions.

Failure to take prompt action on a data security breach can attract up to Rs. 5 crore or 2% of turnover in penalty.

Personal data, the draft law states, may be processed on the basis of the consent of the data principal, given no later than at the commencement of the processing.

It added that processing of sensitive personal data should be on the basis of “explicit consent.”

The law, the committee said, will not have retrospective application and will come into force in a structured and phased manner.

The draft Bill, which has recommended that a Data Protection Authority be set up to prevent misuse of personal information, also provides for setting up an Appellate Tribunal.

On right to be forgotten, the draft states that data principal will have the right to restrict or prevent continuing disclosure of personal data by a data processor.

GS II: POLITY – BILL/ACT

Handle children’s data with care, says committee

The Justice Srikrishna committee on data privacy has made specific mention of the need for separate and more stringent norms for protecting the data of children, recommending that companies be barred from certain types of data processing such as behavioural monitoring, tracking, targeted advertising and any other type of processing which is not in the best interest of the child.

The committee noted that, at present, there were two types of entities processing the personal data of children. The first type were services offered primarily to children, such as YouTube Kids, Hot Wheels and Walt Disney, and the second were social media services such as Facebook and Instagram.

The committee recommends that the Data Protection Authoritywill have the power to designate websites or online services that process large volumes of personal data of children as “guardian data fiduciaries”.

The committee noted that this approach, of placing the onus of properly processing the data of a child on the company, is preferable to the existing regulatory approach which is based solely on a system of parental consent.

“A dominant criticism against parental consent is that it is prone to circumvention, as it risks encouraging children to lie about their age, without achieving the intended purpose of protection,” the report said.

GS II: POLITY – BILL/ACT

Data Protection Authority will be sector-agnostic

The Justice Srikrishna committee, in a report and a draft Bill, recommended the creation of a Data Protection Authoritythat will be in charge of ensuring that entities processing data do so in keeping with the law.

“The DPA, a sector agnostic body, will ensure that every entity that handles data is conscious of its obligations and that it will be held to account in case of failure to comply,” the report said.

The authority will be governed by a board consisting of six whole-time members and a chairperson appointed by the Union government on the recommendation of a selection committee.

“The selection committee shall consist of the Chief Justice of India or her nominee (who is a judge of the Supreme Court of India), the Cabinet Secretary, Government of India, and one expert of repute who has special knowledge of, and professional experience in, areas related to data protection, information technology, data management, data science, cyber and Internet laws and related subjects,” the report said.

The DPA members will have a five-year term, subject to a suitable retirement age and their salaries will be prescribed by the Central government.

Broadly, the DPA will have four departments and related functions: monitoring and enforcement; legal affairs, policy and standard setting; research and awareness; and inquiries, grievance handling and adjudication.

The DPA will be stating codes of practice, conducting inquiries, and issuing warnings and injunctions.

GS II: INTERNATIONAL – ASIA

EU observers term Pak. election ‘problematic’

A European Union election observer mission to Pakistan has said the July 25 election was “negatively affected” by the political environment in the country and suffered from an “unequal opportunity to campaign“.

The election was overshadowed by restrictions on freedom of expression, and while voting was transparent, counting was “somewhat problematic” with staff not always following procedures, the 120-strong EU observer mission said.

Pakistan also elected its first-ever Hindu from a general seat on the PPP ticket since non-Muslims were allowed to contest and vote in general seats in 2002. Mahesh Kumar Malani won the Tharparkar-II seat in Sindh province.

GS II: BILATERAL – INDIA – AFRICA

Modi meets Ramaphosa amid media row over visit

Prime Minister Narendra Modi met South African President Cyril Ramaphosa as part of multiple bilaterals scheduled on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Johannesburg even as local media reported that he had come close to pulling out of the summit.

A report suggested that Johannesburg had sent Energy Minister Jeff Radebe at the last moment to defuse a diplomatic crisis that erupted after the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) of the country wrote to Mr. Modi saying it was investigating the charges by the Muslim Lawyers Association over human rights violations in Kashmir.

It was reported that Mr. Radebe explained to New Delhi that the NPA was not empowered to press charges as the Indian Prime Minister was protected by the Geneva Convention governing international summits.

Ministry of External Affairs has not commented on this episode so far.

GS II: SOCIAL- EDUCATION

Faculty numbers dip 2.34 lakh in 3 years

The total number of teachers in higher educational institutions in India has come down by about 2.34-lakh in the last three years, as per the All India Survey on Higher Education report 2017-18.

Coming at a time when there has been widespread concern over the continuing vacancies in universities, the report is likely to be an eye-opener on the dearth of teachers in Indian universities.

The total number of teachers in higher educational institutions in India – inclusive of all posts from professor to temporary teacher – stood at 12.84 lakh in 2017-18.

The figure for 2016-17 was 13.65 lakh and that for 2015-16 was 15.18 lakh, signalling a fall of about 2.34 lakh within three years.

Between 2011-12 and 2015-16, the number had been rising from 12.47 lakh to 15.18 lakh.

The reason could be that professors who are retiring are not being replaced, and fresh vacancies at all levels are not being filled up.

A senior official of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MoHRD) said that the 2017-18 figure may have gone down because only teachers who provided their Aadhar numbers were been shown as teachers from this year onward.

GS II: SOCIAL- EDUCATION

‘Turnitin’ software for all varsities to check plagiarism in research

Union Minister of Human Resource Development Prakash Javadekar said that the Turnitin software to detect plagiarism in research, would be provided to all universities free of cost.

“A thesis has to be a new addition to existing knowledge. Plagiarism is not all right. We will upload software like Turnitin on the UGC website. It will be open for all universities in the country,” Mr. Javadekar said.

He added that e-Shodh Sindhumass bargain journals would now be available for all universities, including State universities, deemed universities and private universities, at affordable costs.

GS II: POLITY – RTI

‘Set deadline to fill CIC, SICs posts’

The Supreme Court put the government in the dock over long-pending vacancies in the Central Information Commission and the State Information Commissions, adjudicatory bodies under the Right to Information Act.

A Bench of Justices A.K. Sikri and Ashok Bhushan asked the Centre and seven States to file affidavits with a deadline by which they would fill the vacancies. The affidavits have to be filed in four weeks.

The court asked why four positions were still vacant in the CIC despite a government advertisement issued in 2016.

The plea by the RTI activists Anjali Bhardwaj, Commodore (retired) Lokesh Batra and Amrita Johri has said that over 23,500 appeals and complaints are pending with the CIC.

The petitioners said the Centre and the State governments had “attempted to stifle” the RTI Act by failing to appoint commissioners.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, for Ms. Bhardwaj, submitted that after 2016, the new advertisement was only published by the government on Friday, just hours before the hearing in the Supreme Court.

GS III: DISASTER MANAGEMENT

India to give flash-flood warning to Asian nations

India has been designated as a nodal centre for preparing flash-flood forecasts by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

That means India will have to develop a customised model that can issue advance warning of floods in Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand, according to Dr. Madhavan Rajeevan, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences.

The IMD would be working to customise a weather model, developed by the United States and donated to the WMO, to warn of flash floods at least six hours in advance.

Using a combination of satellite mapping and ground-based observation, this system – called the Flash Flood Guidance System – aims to provide forecasts six hours in advance.

Like India, several southeast Asian countries depend on the monsoon and are prone to its vagaries. The proposed modelwould provide forecasts by computing the likelihood of rainfall and the soil moisture levels to warn of possible floods.

Though Pakistan was among the list of countries that would benefit from the forecast, it had refused to participate in the scheme.

India currently has a warning system for tsunamis that also doubles up a warning system for several Asian countries.

The Central Water Commission, which monitors India’s dams, warns of rising water levels in the reservoirs, which are usually taken to be signs of imminent floods.

The organisation has recently tied up with Google to develop a software application to visualise rising water levels during heavy rains.

The WMO says flash floods account for 85% of flooding incidents across the world, causing some 5,000 deaths each year.

GS II: INTERNATIONAL – ASIA

North Korea returns remains of U.S. war dead

North Korea returned the remains of what are believed to be U.S. servicemen killed during the Korean War, the White House said, with a U.S military plane making a rare trip into North Korea to retrieve 55 cases of remains.

The handover follows through on a promise North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made to President Donald Trump when the leaders met in June 2018 and is the first tangible result from the much-hyped summit.

About 7,700 U.S. soldiers are listed as missing from the 1950-53 Korean War, and 5,300 of the remainsare believed to still be in North Korea.

GS II: BILATERAL -INDIA-CHINA

‘Indian firms flouting norms to import Chinese goods ‘

Companies in India are side-stepping the anti-dumping measures imposed by the government by deliberately misclassifying items imported from China, according to a report tabled by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce.

The report also notes that the government has been reluctant to review the effectiveness of its anti-dumping measures.

“This mis-declaration while importing the goods which otherwise have been put under anti-dumping measures nullify the whole effort to protect the domestic industry from unfair trade practices,” the report added.

The Standing Committee named the steel industry as one of the major offenders in this regard, saying that there have been complaints from the domestic steel industry that Chinese non-alloy steel is being imported by being declared as alloy steel.

The committee noted that though nearly 75-80% of Chinese steel imports are covered under the anti-dumping duty, the import of such steel products have increased 8%.